Daring to Be Under the Light
A Conversation with Ebti Nabbag
Interviewed by Kinana Issa
Ebti Nabbag is a Sudanese-Canadian visual artist who works with photography, video, and installation. She is also a digital and analogue photography instructor, teaming up with galleries and community centers to develop art programs that provide opportunities for creative self-expression and aid in the development of identity.
Ebti is a powerful documentary and installation artist who uses photography as a medium for self-exploration and understanding her identity. She uses her work to connect to her roots. She also focuses on putting people who are often under-represented in the spotlight in hopes of creating bridges between people and communities. In addition to her personal work, she instructs photography workshops that encourage diverse youth to explore their identities and accept that their places are under the sun. If you go to Scarborough, you may have seen her work displayed on some public buildings. In Black History Month, she’ll be talking to Henna about Blackness as an identity, how unintentional racism happens, and what true diversity and inclusion mean. As an artist, she’ll be focusing on the role art plays in understanding the complexities of racialized identities, and how photography allows our faces to be celebrated under the light.
Understanding complex identities through art
Ebti identifies as a Sudanese-Canadian visual artist and creator. She immigrated with her family to Canada from Saudi Arabia at a young age. She shares with Henna how this complex background influenced her artwork: “In addition to the different places I grew up in, some people say Sudanese have mixed blood, especially through historical intermarriages, that gives even more layers to identity that I can’t necessarily access. As an artist, I specialize in documentary photography, and my personal work is motivated by my personal experience. I use art as a tool to challenge my surrounding and my lived experience. One of my earlier works was titled Movement in Tradition, which was a telescope to my Sudanese traditions. I focused on where the tradition is, where it comes from, and where it’s going. I wanted to challenge my identity as a Sudanese Canadian and what it means. This also brought some conversations or questions to my mother. My project explored traditions through the relationship with the Tobe, which is a traditional garment women in Sudan wear, especially when they get married. I wanted to understand what my relationship to this tradition was. This personal exploration journey revealed more than I expected, and it helped me understand my culture and country better. There turned out to be a timeline for how Tobe designs changed according to what was going on in the country. The mother-daughter conversation went further down the line to explore historical events that happened in Sudan,and it was loaded with political, social, historical, and cultural meanings. That all intersected with my questions about identity and how am I Canadian and Sudanese at the same time.”
As a teacher and community artist, Ebti shares her experiences through her work and includes them in her teaching to encourage the youth to talk about their identity and express themselves in different ways: “I teach youth photography programming, and partner with art organizations and galleries to create content that is lens-based. I like to teach analog photography, it’s one of the first workshops I enrolled myself in as a youth. It slows down the process and you become in tune with creating work instead of just snapping photos. Visual storytelling helps in the development of identity and understanding our relationship with our surroundings, and bringing community and people together. It’s a visual conversation starter that delves into societal identity and systemic issues. In my own work, I present photography and art as a tool for understanding our personal experiences. When I teach photography to youth I put a bit of that in my teaching. It helps show the importance of creative work and storytelling. The youth then start to realize how powerful a camera can be. I get them to create work that is personal to their lived experience. We know ourselves best, and that’s how we relate to the world. I don’t impose subjects on them, rather, I let them explore who they are. This way they have complete agency on what to reflect on. Later if they want to continue, they can tell stories of other people. Because the youth in my programs are quite diverse, we end up covering various topics such as race, immigration, gender, mental health, and more. They end up finding ways to express themselves, their beliefs, and to be understood. This helps them gain confidence in who they are and value their experiences.”
Being in a classroom that has a lot of diversity helped Ebti understand the different perspectives and backgrounds: “Most of the youth I work with come from the African diaspora, newcomer communities, South Asian, and South American. I do my best to be inclusive in the material I share with the youth for it to reflect the students in the class. A diverse student body brings multiple perspectives into the class. This creates an educational environment for everyone, for me too as a teacher. Instead of the one-dimensional perspective, it brings an opportunity to learn about different parts of the world. I add different cultures and stories in the curriculum and it helps everyone feel seen and included. Sometimes there can be language barriers, and this is where photography becomes even more important, it’s visual, and it makes it easy to communicate by viewing photos. It’s important to rewrite history and have our faces on it. We are part of the identity of this multicultural space. We have to add the faces of Black people, newcomers, and the land’s ancestors.”
Racial challenges and “not seeing colour “
Being a photographer of colour portraying racialized identities poses big challenges for Ebti: “It’s not easy to break into the industry and have your work be seen. If you’re a person of colour you have to work twice as hard to get your work in spaces, to be included in galleries and publication, you have to produce more work and 10 times better than the next person to be considered for the opportunity. If you’re a woman, that makes it even more complicated. If you’re visibly religious and a person of colour and a woman the challenge becomes even greater. But that’s not the only issue. Even when you get exhibited you will still face other issues. If you focus on a specific community how can you avoid it being fetishized? Some people consume them because they feel they’re exotic. How do you avoid being tokenized?”
Ebti considers herself lucky to have been able to work with diverse organizations that have high awareness towards racial issues, but that’s not the case in her day-to-day life: “Blackness is a bit different in Canada because of multiculturalism, but we still experience the systemic racism, prejudice and all of that. There are so many shades of Blackness in Canada now and it looks different for different people. This difference in shade brings a difference in experience, even though we’re all seen as “Black”. Despite the systemic racism I face, I recognize that I am privileged due to my lighter skin tone. After immigrating here, I had to learn I am Black. In Sudan everyone is Black. Learning that there is a racial bias in pain assessment and that Black people are considered to have thicker skin, and can tolerate pain longer is shocking. I get discouraged from going to the hospital because of that. As a young person in Sudan, I didn’t have to realize what prejudice was because everyone was Sudanese. Coming here I had to learn why it’s different for me to do things.”
But direct racism is not Ebti’s only challenge, sometimes it’s the denial of the racialized experience: ”Some people say they don’t see colour, which means you don’t see the history of Black people, you’re dening that slavery and colonialism ever happened, that systemic racism doesn’t exist, you are not holding anyone accountable. It feels that you don’t see me, and you don’t see how you might contribute to the lack of equality, equity and systemic racism. It’s a disadvantage if you don’t see colour, then you’re not seeing the possibility of other people’s experiences, and what society thinks about their colour. It’s a lack of education. We all need to learn more about Black history, it’s an opportunity to educate.”
DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION IS ABOUT DOING THE WORK
Ebti sees that inclusivity doesn’t come by goodwill only, there is work to be done to understand other people’s experiences: “It’s about putting yourself in places where you can get to know other communities and other cultures instead of keeping with your close net. There’s a level of comfort in being in familiar places, but challenging this comfort zone will help you bridge gaps and be with people. Doing that, educating yourself, and being open to hearing others. It’s ok to ask questions. Some may get triggered by certain questions and education helps you understand where these triggers are coming from and what the history is. Keep questions as questions not assumptions, and make them open-ended. It’s ok to challenge the news and not take things for face value. Search the web but also be careful of what you find. Some people have educational Instagram pages, blogs, Facebook pages. Now with social media, you can start following the right people.”
This kind of work needs to happen on institutional levels, too: “Do the work, it means to actively include diverse work from people, to diversify your staff, hire people from different backgrounds, lived experiences, and age groups. Create opportunities for people of colour, newcomers, communities that don’t get selected for opportunities because they are often overlooked. Make it a constant practice in the workplace, include it in the organizational mandate. It’s time for organizations, spaces, institutions to start doing the work. The death of George Floyd woke up a lot of people, corporations, institutions, and community organizations. Now it’s about being accountable and continuing to do the work. Not just because of what’s on the news. A gallery space during the racial tension in the United States wanted to put up a piece of work from a Black artist on their social media, they realized they don’t have any. It took something so tragic for them to realized that they don’t own work from a Black artist. There’s a gap and it needs to be filled if true inclusion is to happen.”
